“Then I won’t say another word. Oh, by the way, they was all in sorrow.”
“Were they? What about?”
“It seems there was a little chap that—but what is the matter, Piers?”
“I won’t listen, I won’t, I won’t,” cried Piers. He clapped his hands to his ears and rushed out of the room.
“He shall come into his own. There’s a cruel sin somewhere, and Clary is at the bottom of it,” said Mrs. Ives to herself.
CHAPTER XXVI.
NOT IN THE BARGAIN.
Nearly a month went by and the time was getting towards Christmas. The weather in London was bitterly cold. Fogs were frequent, and there was a good deal of sickness about.
Mrs. Pelham had left town and gone down to Pelham Towers to stay with the new owner and his wife. She was to spend Christmas with them. Tarbot had discovered what he considered a specific against influenza and was specially busy. His wife helped him. She had thrown herself into the full interest of his work, and was a valuable assistant. He found himself talking over his cases with her. She gave him many an important suggestion.
As a competent nurse and even as a friend he began to find her not disagreeable. Her hopes were high that she might yet win that shriveled and undeveloped part of him which he called his heart. As illness increased and the doctor’s time became more and more busy, Clara hoped against hope that his darling revenge was being put out of sight. With all her knowledge and all her cleverness, however, she little knew her man.
Towards the middle of December the influenza began to abate, and on a certain evening Tarbot came home early, entered his wife’s drawing-room, and, flinging himself into a chair, looked her full in the face.